Macau - Visitors to Macau are paying local children 10 to 20 patacas (1.25 to 2.50 dollars) to beat immigration queues at the land border between Macau and Zhuhai in southern China, a media report said Friday.

People hiring Macanese children can clear immigration within 20 minutes compared to the 60 minutes it usually takes during peak hours, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said.

They are taking advantage of a rule that anyone "guarding" a Macanese child may use resident channels to cross the border that 8.9 million people traversed in the first half of this year.

The "service" has become more popular since the start of the summer school holidays as parents offer their children for rental.

The immigration hall often runs at full capacity with long lines of visitors trying to cross into Macau, a former Portuguese colony that retains its own customs and immigration authorities despite reverting to Chinese sovereignty in December 1999.

The congestion is made worse by Chinese workers living in Zhuhai who cross the border every day to work on Macau's massive infrastructure expansion and the restricted opening hours of the border, which is open from 7 am to midnight.

The territory is undergoing a construction boom as foreign investors, including gambling giants such as Wynn Resorts Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp, are building hotels and resorts. (dpa)